Shoshana Sachi Writes Inclusively from Los Angeles

Shoshana Sachi, 30, explains what it’s like for a New Zealander being a “triple threat minority” in Hollywood – an immigrant woman of colour in a Vice magazine opinion piece.

“It’s not a new phenomenon for me to be a statistical outlier. Growing up in small town New Zealand, I was affectionately called ‘token’ by my friend group. But in a place like Hollywood, things really ought to be different. Shouldn’t they?” Sachi writes.

“My first days, weeks, and months in Hollywood were filled with men pointing out to me that screenwriting was a ‘male career’ or a ‘boys’ club’, to say nothing of the genres that interested me: horror, gaming, animation. Like the stock-standard story of the ‘gamer girl’, I was either a revered unicorn, or ridiculed. How was I going to thrive? I was told to expect being an outsider, fetishised, and often in danger. It was taken for granted that the small pockets of women screenwriters in the industry would be at each other’s throats for the proverbial scraps. The whole thing was terrifying.

“But in reality, our experiences as women of colour are important. My place in the industry is worth fighting for. To make impactful, truthful stories about our global human experience, the industry needs us.

“For a society so far ahead in other ways, there’s really no excuse for the continued over-sexualisation and de-humanisation of women in gaming, film, and television. I hope to be just one face among a growing force of women of colour who will tell stories about women; resilient, complex beings who deserve to have their voices heard.”

Sachi was born in Kuala Lumpur. She moved to New Zealand at the age of 15. She has a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Waikato and an MFA in Screenwriting from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Sachi is the author of The Way of the River, a dystopian novel set in Hamilton.

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